Post by daisyhill on Apr 24, 2011 14:19:34 GMT -5
Is there any real treatment or cure for mastitis?
I am both mystified and discouraged, and wonder if anyone here has had any real success in actually getting rid of mastitis. Or does it always linger and come back later? I wish I could hear some success stories!
Our cow, Dolly, had her calf last week (Palm Sunday). She freshened with bloody clotty mastitis in one quarter. I milked her out thoroughly, massaging her udder, and got about a pint of gunk out. The next time I milked, the colostrum looked pretty normal, but strained slowly, with small clots on the filter.
Dolly doesn't believe in coming into the barn more than twice a day, so it is difficult to milk her out more often. I decided to use Today on the quarter, and continued to milk and gently massage. The filter looked better yesterday, but still had a sticky scum left. Yesterday evening milking, the milk looked fairly normal, still slow straining, but later that evening when I persuaded her to come in again it was pink with blood. This morning it was clean again, no visible clumps. I didn't strain it because there was only about a fourth of a cup.
Each time I have milked, while the other three quarters have been increasing their production, the mastitic quarter has been decreasing. Is she drying that quarter up on her own? Does that happen?
I think I can feel a kind of knot in that quarter, but I'm not really sure. I'm not that familiar with her udder, and don't know how it "should" feel normally.
I am worried, partly because of my bad experience with mastitis last summer. Some of you may remember what happened with Liberty the Jersey, whose mastitis I struggled with all summer. I finally was able to verify that she had both Staph A and klebsiella, and she was culled, but only after months of trying all the treatments I knew of. It was not fun.
Dolly is in a completely new location, so we aren't dealing with residual infection from Liberty.
I don't have much faith in the vet--he was nice last year, but I think by the time we were done I knew as much about mastitis as he did. Basically, all he had to offer was the antibiotic injections and teat infusions, which had no effect on the Staph or klebsiella.
If anyone has any thoughts or advice I would be interested in hearing.
I am both mystified and discouraged, and wonder if anyone here has had any real success in actually getting rid of mastitis. Or does it always linger and come back later? I wish I could hear some success stories!
Our cow, Dolly, had her calf last week (Palm Sunday). She freshened with bloody clotty mastitis in one quarter. I milked her out thoroughly, massaging her udder, and got about a pint of gunk out. The next time I milked, the colostrum looked pretty normal, but strained slowly, with small clots on the filter.
Dolly doesn't believe in coming into the barn more than twice a day, so it is difficult to milk her out more often. I decided to use Today on the quarter, and continued to milk and gently massage. The filter looked better yesterday, but still had a sticky scum left. Yesterday evening milking, the milk looked fairly normal, still slow straining, but later that evening when I persuaded her to come in again it was pink with blood. This morning it was clean again, no visible clumps. I didn't strain it because there was only about a fourth of a cup.
Each time I have milked, while the other three quarters have been increasing their production, the mastitic quarter has been decreasing. Is she drying that quarter up on her own? Does that happen?
I think I can feel a kind of knot in that quarter, but I'm not really sure. I'm not that familiar with her udder, and don't know how it "should" feel normally.
I am worried, partly because of my bad experience with mastitis last summer. Some of you may remember what happened with Liberty the Jersey, whose mastitis I struggled with all summer. I finally was able to verify that she had both Staph A and klebsiella, and she was culled, but only after months of trying all the treatments I knew of. It was not fun.
Dolly is in a completely new location, so we aren't dealing with residual infection from Liberty.
I don't have much faith in the vet--he was nice last year, but I think by the time we were done I knew as much about mastitis as he did. Basically, all he had to offer was the antibiotic injections and teat infusions, which had no effect on the Staph or klebsiella.
If anyone has any thoughts or advice I would be interested in hearing.